Originally Posted by
rotorspeed
Aucky - is your reason for starting this thread because of an academic issue, in that you are concerned/interested that there is a technical gap in the regs here, or a practical issue, in that you are concerned about the collision risks of departing in IMC from particularly airfields in Class G airspace?
My interest is two fold: 1) As a conscientious pilot I like to understand what rules I’m supposed to be adhering to incase I one day need to justify them, and 2) as post-holder I want to understand what procedures are considered normal practice amongst other experienced professional pilots who fly for a spread of operators, in the absence of clarity within application of the regulation. Perhaps there is a 3rd reason, which is to highlight the total idiocy of making it so hard to approve a PinS departure without 2+ years of work and ACPs, and to simultaneously allow people to depart IFR from aerodromes without even an omnidirectional departure.
To be clear - I have no interest in trying to restrict people from doing what they already do, I think we should be able to depart IFR from an airfield without a SID, but it would be nice if IFR aerodrome operators were incentivised to at least publish an omnidirectional departure which we could very simply hang our hat on, without having to come up with convoluted OM part A or C procedures.
The issue of collision risks when flying IMC in class G, with other aircraft at least, is not a real concern for me. I’ve spent significantly more time IFR in class G than any other airspace and I’ve found VFR in class G to be significantly more dangerous from a MAC perspective. Most aircraft flying in IMC have some form of transponder and talk on the radio. That said, I quite like the use of class E on the continent for IFR traffic.